If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Your ping depends on alot of things.. Connection speed of both up and down stream together properly.. check this with CMD in your run box and type ping www.yahoo.com for example.. check a site thats near where the server is located. Also could be the servers connection its on or how many hops it needs to go through to get from your computer to the server and back. Make sure you don't have any thing else trying to fight for internet bandwidth on the computer or another computer on the connection while your trying to play the game too.. IE: downloading stuff while playing.

You can do some things to help your latency...
Quality router
Quality NIC
Quality ISP...not all ISPs are created equal.
Make sure your computer is lean, mean, and clean. Free from ad/spy/malware, viruses.
Some antivirus programs bog down your system more than others, so choose a lightweight antivirus program.
Software firewalls can bog down your system.
Any other uses on your network sharing your router?

-Quality router
I have a Cisco 675 DSL which is a bit old. Will a newer one help?

-Quality NIC
Not sure what kind of NIC I have. Im not that great at computers,
so sorry for my ignorance but NIC is a card that deals with TCP/IP?

-Quality ISP...not all ISPs are created equal.
My ISP is Qwest which I believe was bought by Microsoft. Ive never
had any downtime with them. If I call them do you think they will/can
help cut down on my hops?

That router should be fine, old, but still a good one.
NICs can vary in latency, some are el-cheapos, more software driven, CPU intensive, kind of like the cheap Winmodems of years ago in the dial up days. Good hardware controller based NICs are better. Some of the best performing NICs, 3COM, Intel, and the onboard nVidia.
I used to shop around all the time comparing ISPs. Generally for DSL, the local phone company isn't the best. Better ones are such like Speakeasy...yeah 3x as expensive, but really good. Speakeasy even has an ultra-low latency gaming package.

Not in any way trying to detract from SG in anyway, but you may want to read a thread here... http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,14572012
Interleaved first hop high ping , Fastpath lower ping first hop. Did this same battle w/ VZ and it made a HUGE difference. Good luck, HTH

Try the program Ping Plotter its free from www.download.com . Just type in the website of your server and it will give you a lower ping. Be sure to save after it lowers your ping so you can continue to use the lowered ping.

PingPlotter doesn't do anything to change your performance, it's just a graphical TracerRoute...showing your hops, and you can see which devices might be causing the larger increases in your latency from your computer to your destination.

1. Go to www.broadbandreports.com and run their speed test, packet loss test, but most importantly, their tweak test. This will help make sure your computer is set correctly for broadband

2. Most often overlooked item in the whole bundle! How old is the wiring in your residence? Own or rent? If you rent, not much you can do except probably waste money in buying fancy cat-3 cable. Might help, but success has been very limited.
If you own, or can get landlord permission to change the wiring, try making a new run from your network interface box outside the house, with high-quality wire, straight to your modem. This helps quite a bit in some cases.

There is no way to improve ping from your ISP to the server destination short of changing ISPs. if it's really bad, you may want to switch ISP to one that offers lower latency. Note however that sometimes the lag is route dependent/distance lag and is not your ISP's fault (actually it is their fault since they could get more peers and route it through another path but chances of them doing this for you is basically nonexistent)

The 1st way you can improve it is by lowering the ping from your wireless router to your cable modem if you're on wireless. Ping time to the first hop should be 1-2 ideally. No higher than 5..

Second way is to nag your ISP to fix the ping times to the 2nd and 3rd hops if the ping times are too high. pings to the 2nd and 3rd hop should be around 10, under 20 at least. Basically it shouldn't be too high before leaving your ISP's own networks otherwise you'll get high pings to everywhere.

3rd way is to disable nagle algorithm. Disabling it will likely reduce your latency by half.

4th way is to limit your MTU. Try different values of MTU. Personally I use 368. Beware that it will limit your download/upload speed but you will notice a reduction in latency.

5th way only works for DSL type connections. By switching from interleaved to fastpath, you gain improved latency at the cost of lowered download speeds.